Reserved Forests

Sanctuary Blog

So the Prime Ministers Office is catching stick for coal block allocations. But its not merely how coal was allocated that is the issue, its also the very fact that it is being allocated from forests and other ecosystems without which India has no future.

As a long time member of the Central Government's environmental expert

So, after giving the Supreme Court faulty advice, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) realises that it acted in haste, but it will nevertheless be forced to repent at leisure... at the expense of a nation riven with quixotic planning, short-term goals and insensitivity to the environment that support us all.

Many of us who served India for decades on Environmental Committees mandated to protect our natural resources have tried without success to convey to planners that they cannot so ruthlessly destroy life-support infrastructures -- forests, wetlands, coasts, rivers, lakes -- to create infrastructures of commerce -- mines, dams,

Its bad enough that India's economists are doing a terrible job of managing our fragile nation. Its worse that they are trying to cover their inefficiencies by plundering our ecological vaults (exporting cheap coal to China from under critically important forests, including our Tiger Reserves). This will end up by turning India

Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR) in South India at the common border between Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu is praised for its conservation success but for some good reasons I feel that NBR is half successful in protecting the greater landscape. Before going further let us understand the rich bio diverse landscapes

The Sanctuary Cover Story June 2011 explores whether and how we can negotiate a path by availing of the immense potential of tourism to educate, conserve and offer employment, YET avoid the minefield of misuse and abuse that afflicts many of our finest wildernesses. And in the process can we ensure that wild species and the people who live next to them become primary beneficiaries of tourism? Can wildlife tourism physically enhance the quality and quantum of habitat available to wild species? People have grappled with this issue for over a century, but few people put the issue in better perspective than Aldo Leopold, the famous American naturalist, who opined that, "The problem with wildlife management is not how we handle the deer - the real problem is one of human management."